OPINION: "Aliens.gov" and the Edgy Meme-ification of Immigration Policy

On May 28, 2026, the White House quietly added a new page to its website: whitehouse.gov/aliens, or simply known by its shorthand domain, aliens.gov. Upon clicking, visitors are greeted by glowing green text scrolling up a starry black background in a style reminiscent of The X-Files. “Grotesque and terrifying and juvenile” is how Ernesto Verdeja, a genocide-prevention expert at the University of Notre Dame describes it and we couldn’t agree more.

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BuzzFeed News: "'Illegal Alien' Will No Longer Be Used In Many US Government Communications"

For many years the American government has used such terms as “alien” and “illegal alien” when referring to non-US citizens—terms that many immigration advocates have denounced as “dehumanizing” and offensive. Now, under direction from the Biden administration, Tracy Renaud, the senior official performing the duties of the director of US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), has issued a memo for the agency to no longer refer to foreign nationals as “illegal alien,” “alien,” or “undocumented alien” in internal and external communications, but rather to use the terms “noncitizen,” “undocumented noncitizen,” or “undocumented individual.” Additionally, USCIS will no longer use “assimilation,” but instead use the term “integration,” and also will refer to those who apply for immigration benefits as “customers.”

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